German Georg Gartner escaped from an American POW Camp in New Mexico

In 1943, the Americans seized Georg Gartner in Tunis and took him to a POW camp in New Mexico. After the war was over in September 1945, he actually managed to flee from the Americans. His motivation sprang from the Soviet occupation of his Lower Silesia birthplace. Gartner decided to profit from his American guards' relaxed post-war attitude rather than risk being repatriated into the hands of the Red Army. He managed to leave the camp by squeezing between the gates and boarding a train, whose schedule he had been familiar with while in jail. He traveled to California on the train.

Gartner continued to wander about while picking up odd jobs and eventually developing a new identity. Despite the FBI conducting a massive manhunt for the escaped prisoner, he managed to get identification that identified him as Dennis Whiles and included a Social Security card. He was on the FBI's Most Wanted List for 18 years, and his wanted poster was displayed across the country. He later relocated to Boulder, Colorado, where he worked in the construction industry, but he persisted in remaining undetected. He had two adopted children by this time, and he was married. In the end, he was unable to keep his background a secret because of the marriage.

His reticence to talk about his life before 1945 alarmed his wife, and eventually he told her the truth. She pushed him divulge his secret, which he did in 1985 in front of the public, including a visit to the Today Show on NBC. He was not detained or expatriated by the US authorities, and in 2009 he was granted citizenship. Prior to that, he returned to Germany in the 1980s, which led to the divorce of his wife and his ultimate return to the United States. The only German POW from World War II held in American captivity passed away in 2013 in Loveland, Colorado, 68 years after eluding American custody.

Birth name: Georg Gärtner
Other name(s): Dennis F. Whiles
Born: December 18, 1920Schweidnitz, Lower Silesia(now Świdnica, Poland)
Died: January 30, 2013 (aged 92)Loveland, Colorado, U.S.